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Charles Proteus Steinmetz
Charles Proteus Steinmetz (April 9, 1865-October 26, 1923) was born in Breslau, Silesia, Germany. He developed theories for alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States.
Contributions:
- Steinmetz' experiments on power losses in the magnetic materials used in electrical machinery led to his first important work, the law of hysteresis. This law deals with the power loss that occurs in all electrical devices when magnetic action is converted to unusable heat. Until that time the power losses in motors, generators, transformers, and other electrically powered machines could be known only after they were built. Once Steinmetz had found the law governing hysteresis loss, engineers could calculate and minimize losses of electric power due to magnetism in their designs before starting the construction of such machines.
- His second contribution was a practical method for making calculations concerning alternating current circuits. This method was an example of using mathematical aids for engineering the design of machinery and power lines, so that the performance of the electrical system could be predicted in advance without the necessity of going through the expensive and uncertain process of building the system first and then testing it for its efficiency. Steinmetz developed a symbolic method of calculating alternating-current phenomena and in so doing simplified an extremely complicated and barely understood field so that the average engineer could work with alternating current. This accomplishment was largely responsible for the rapid progress made in the commercial introduction of alternating-current apparatus.
- Steinmetz' third major scientific achievement was in the study and theory of electrical transients - that is, changes in electrical circuits of very short duration. A prime example of this phenomenon is lightning, and Steinmetz' investigation of lightning phenomena resulted in his theory of traveling waves and opened the way for his development of devices to protect high-power transmission lines from lightning bolts. In the course of this work he also designed a generator that produced a discharge of 10,000 amperes and more than 100,000 volts, equivalent to a power of more than 1,000,000 horsepower for 1/100,000 of a second.
- Cedergren Medal : 1914
- America and the New Epoch (1916)
- Engineering Mathematics: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Union College, 3rd ed. (1917)
- Four Lectures on Relativity and Space (1923)
- The Future of Electricity (1910); and General Lectures on Electrical Engineering, 5th ed., comp. and ed. by Joseph L. Hayden (1918).
- "The Natural Period of a Transmission Line and the Frequency of lightning Discharge Therefrom". The Electrical world. August 27, 1898. Pg. 203 - 205.
At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents.
- US533244 - "System of distribution by alternating current". January 29, 1895.
- US1025932 - "Means for producing light". May 7, 1912.
- U.S. Supreme Court, "U S EX REL STEINMETZ v. ALLEN, 192 U.S. 543 (1904)". UNITED STATES ex rel. CHARLES P. STEINMETZ, Plff. in Err., v. FREDERICK I. ALLEN, Commissioner of Patents. No. 383. Argued January 12, 13, 1904. Decided February 23, 1904.
- Charles Proteus Steinmetz - Eugenii Katz
- John Winthrop Hammond, Charles Proteus Steinmetz: A Biography (1924)
- Ernest Caldecott and Philip L. Alger (eds.), Steinmetz the Philosopher (1965)
